THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SYSTEM
This may be the oldest struggle of human living. What is the relationship between the rights and freedom of the individual and the collective need to make a society work? This goes back to the earliest writings and still we struggle. On the far right, we have people who believe that the individual is king, and nothing should interfere with their striving to become completely fulfilled. On the other side, there are those who sincerely believe that the failures of the individual need to be controlled and aligned toward the goals of a greater good. Who is right? I guess it all depends.
There are many cases made for each side of this. All the inventors, paradigm breakers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and others who, through nothing but individual effort, shifted human life in major and minor ways. They stood outside the prevailing notions of their day and risked being seen as insane and evil, while they pursued their vision of a new possibility. They paid a price often, but it was worth it for that feeling of a personal success.
On the other side, it is clear that without the cooperative effort of people through the ages, we would not have survived. We “hunted and gathered” and so many other things of cooperation that allowed the joining of efforts to allow the most basic of survival. Not to mention, the coming together to protect each other in times of war, famine, and other natural disasters. Without the village, it would have been hard to not only raise a child, but too survive as a species. The collective provides a grounding and a support that literally lets us make it to adulthood. And it also develops rules and myths and values and laws that constrict and limit that curious child’s mind.
And this battle goes on today. We see it in our political battle on a day to day basis. We have the “individualist” side and all the anti-government talk and bashing. They are the ones saying that everything will be fine if you just let the individual have freedom. And the other side keeps pointing to the excesses and folly of those who live by the greed of self, who have abused the system, have manipulated markets, find ways around rules in order to make a killing. They hold that there has to be constraints.
And they are both right. Completely. And that is not the contradiction it seems to be. We are at once, both an individual and we are the system. Now, I did not say we are “part of the system”, which is the most normal way of saying that. No, we are the system as clearly as we are an individual. It is inescapable. What we do as individuals makes the system and what the system does makes the individual. The separation is an illusion of our mind that wants to stand outside the way life actually works. Nothing is separate and each point of awareness is a life unto itself. We are uniquely alone and the whole at the same time. The only reason we can not see this, is that we want to name our self, and with that naming, we stand apart and only come back to the system as an idea. Go deeply into your “independent being” and you will find that you are the whole. Tlane 2/23/12
If we can’t see we are the system, we certainly see our physical system containing all of the intricacies that make us alive in the world. When we abuse our system through excess food, thought, etc., etc we hurt this system. The other day as I ate an unhealthy snack, I wondered if it might take a day off my life and even with this thought, continued to munch on the oily snack. We make those kinds of decisions every day–we make short term decisions which hurt our system even it eventually kills us! Blind spots which keep us from seeing the whole. We are the system, we are the world. A question is emerging and I’m not sure how to phrase so help me if you can. Even when we get a glimpse, our conditioning leads us to mechanically making short term decisions that hurt the whole even though we are the whole. Do you see this is because we keep separating ourselves from the system as your paper seems to be saying? We go to war with our family, with our community, with our politicians, with other countries…and the list goes on???? If we really saw we are the system, how would we flow in the world? Imagine….
To keep remembering that we are the system has a quieting effect. Just like you noticed what you were eating and paused at what that is doing to my body, noticing how we engage the world can remind us that we are this world.
I often feel that same way. Watching the news and seeing the mid-east hatred and part of me just wanted to condemn them, and then I was them. I paused and realized they are just acting out their separation and conditioning, just like I was about to do. It is hard to remember that we are the world. t
Beautiful response. Yes, I see what is happening in my head and the things I am making up that judges and separates and I smile a lot at me being the world, the irony… Even though it is quite sad and my awareness keeps me from acting out (most of the time!). The littlest of moments all day long we have the chance to see our conditioning, the greatest movie of all and I appreciate your papers which also bring pause and reflection to my life.